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Airtel to launch IPTV in Bangalore on Friday

Last updated: 08 December, 2010

Dilip Maitra, Bangalore, Dec 8, DH News Service:

Bharti Airtel is set to launch its IP (internet protocol) Television service in Bangalore on Friday.

IP TV is a television broadcasting service where TV channels (upwards of 100) from internet are piped into television through a combination of fibre optic cables and copper wire (for last mile connectivity in to homes). Bangalore will be second after Delhi NCR region to get this service.

Talking to Deccan Herald, Bharti Telemedia Services Chief Marketing Officer Girish Mehta said “We are launching IP TV in Bangalore because the City is technology savvy and we already have a large broadband customer base of 1.8 lakh.”

With this company can now offer customers single customer service interface and single unified bill for voice, broadband and TV and video entertainment. “This is what we call the Triple Play from one connection. The wired lines to a home will be split up using splitters to provide, telephony, broadband and IP TV services,” Mehta said.

Another important feature is ‘Time Shift TV’ which will allow subscribers to view any earlier TV programme in the last seven days from the server anytime and as many times. Users will also be able to pause, fast forward or fast backward programmes. The big benefit is they can forward commercials while watching a movie.

Any existing Airtel customer of broadband service can get IP TV with top up of Rs 249 a month for a package of 127 TV channels.

It will also offer different rates for bundled packages for all three services. Airtel will offer 42 channels, of the 127, on Time Shift. Subscribers will be able to watch movies, from the library of 150, under the ‘video on demand’ service.